


Silent Spaces

by arysthaeniru



Category: Death Note
Genre: F/F, F/M, Navel-Gazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2015-10-17
Packaged: 2018-04-26 18:28:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5015449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysthaeniru/pseuds/arysthaeniru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four years of peace is a long time to brood and regret.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silent Spaces

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not entirely sure if I got across what I wanted to, but I was feeling particularly Misa-centric. She's so messed up <3

Their bedroom was silence. Plunging, deafening, overwhelming silence, wrapping itself around the corners of the ornate bed and the plush covers and the ornate, cluttered dresser in the corner, curling inside the nooks and crannies of their wardrobe. A lot of her and Light’s relationship was filled with silence, but the bedroom suffocated her with it on some days.

It wasn’t like her relationship with Light was bad. He smiled when he got home after the case, freely talked about Kira matters when they were undressing, and they had amazing sex. Truly, Light was a man of several talents in the bedroom, but after he’d pushed her to climax, only silence remained.

She loved him with all of her heart and Light was fond of her, that much she was sure of. But there was much unsaid between them. He never asked about Misa’s feelings. Occasionally, he asked about her day, but most of the time, Misa had to take the initiative to tell him. And his thoughts and feelings were never revealed to her. Not once. Only his orders and his requests and his frequent annoyance with the task force was ever voiced aloud, and that was after some choice prodding.

Not that it was much different to how it had always been, but Misa had almost been hoping that Light would open up a bit more, trust her a little bit more now that L was gone and they had won. He loved her, that much was clear with his need to have her and nobody else by his side, but it was silent at night, and that drove Misa insane.

She’d suffered nightmares since the deaths of her parents, but they’d always lessened with someone in her bed. She’d slept with another model once, (before she’d met Light, she could never cheat on her knight in shining armour, not now she'd snared him and had him by her side)! And that had been one of the best night’s sleep she’d ever had. But the nightmares never disappeared with Light in her bed. His didn’t either. Both of them always woke up in the middle of the night, wordless screams at their edges of their mouths.

She wondered sometimes what made him wake up like that, and lock himself in the bathroom for ten minutes, before he got back to bed with some water and painkillers. Was it the horrendous days of solitary confinement? His father pretending to shoot him? The painful death of Higuchi? (Matsuda had told her about it later, in a hushed, censored tone, as if she was a stranger to people dying, from heart attacks or gunshots wounds, leaving blood all over the cream-coloured carpet).

But she didn’t dream of her parents, surprisingly. Not anymore. Nor of the sixty days of darkness and fear and loneliness and anger and frustrations. Her dreams always consisted of Gelus and Rem, talking, as if they still existed in this plane. The two people who’d died for her, but away from her, not in front of her. They’d had to courtesy to not leave the grotesque nature of death in front of her eyes and in dreams, they spoke of useless things. She didn't even know what Gelus sounded like, but in the dream, he was happy. Rem was as impassive as ever, her bright yellow eye blinking down at Misa with the same intensity as it had possessed when she had been alive. Though nothing happened in the dream that was particularly scary upon waking up, she still woke up screaming, as if falling from some great height. 

Inbetween modelling shoots in the daytime, Misa sat with her juice and her salad and examined her face in the mirror, as the make-up artists changed up her foundation and eyeshadow. What was it about her that made shinigami love her enough to die for her? Was it her looks? Porcelain, like a little china doll made in perfect precision and detail? Was it her bright facade of emotions with which the world had fallen in love? Or was it something deeper? Her long twisted relationship with death?

She sometimes wondered whether she should ask Light, a god of death in his own way; what it was that had made him love her? But their relationship was punctuated with silences and careful routines, and she wasn’t entirely sure he’d give her a truthful answer if she asked him. He loved her very deeply, but he loved her so much that he would lie to her face, if he saw it necessary. He cared about her safety and her wellbeing more than he cared about her emotions, and it was sometimes flattering, but sometimes very restricting and smothering. Like a thick blanket, wrapped around her over and over again, cocooning her in warmth. Misa wasn't entirely sure that was what she wanted, but Light was smarter than her, and did everything for the greater good, so she stretched herself out for him, made it easier for him to wrap her up and protect her. Now that he was hers, and she was his, and Kira reigned supreme and L was dead, there wasn't anything to worry about anymore. 

She bought a lovebird somewhere along the way, one night when Light was off at work late, she thinks, to keep her company and fill up the silence of their apartment with squawking, clucking and repetition of the songs that she hummed while trying on her new clothes. Light hated it, but Misa had put down her foot about keeping it, and it had reluctantly become a staple part of the nights when she was actually home. Ryuk had found the bird amusing, and she’d explained it to the shinigami easily.

“I have you as a pet, so I thought Light might be lonely, so I got him this.” she had said, and Ryuk nearly killed himself from laughter. Misa grinned and leant back against the sofa. Light’s face was turned away from them, as he seemed to be studiously working on something, something that Misa wasn’t entirely sure was accurate.

“What’s it called?” asked Ryuk, recovering slowly from the laughter, leaning over the sofa's cushions to meet her gaze.

“Rem.” she said, staring into Ryuk’s red, red eyes. She hadn’t…she hadn’t wanted to call it that. She’d wanted to call it Mai-chan, cute and sweet, but something had faltered when she’d looked at Ryuk properly. His face didn’t change with those words, it never did unless apples were involved, but Light got up out of his chair, suddenly.

“I can’t do this anymore. I’ll get up early tomorrow and finish it.” Light had said, yawning softly. “Coming, Misa?”

And she followed him into silence, not questioning. She’d woken up in the middle of the night, remembering Rem’s hands around her in the Yotsuba bathroom, her concerned face hovering over. Misa couldn’t read Ryuk’s face at all, despite the ever present smile, and somehow it had been much easier to read the unchanging visage of Rem.

And this time, she was the one who staggered up to the bathroom, as Light restlessly turned over in his sleep, an uneasy frown etched into his features. Ryuk followed her, a strange look in his eyes as she stared into the mirror at her face lacking make-up and sleep and life. In her dream, she had been pulling red strings around Rem, laughing with Gelus as she had done so, and Rem had seemed happy enough about it, until Misa had tied the final knot around Rem's neck, and Rem had crumbled into dust, eye wide and betrayed. The sound of dust around her still rang in her ears now. With a blank look, Misa splashed her face with water, trying to drown out the sound, and looked up, at her pale skin. She was a doll in the mirror and she couldn’t see what had made Rem love her enough to die for her. 

As she sat through the press conference interview about getting her first live-action movie role, the next day, Misa thought about the first time she had met Rem. It had been three days after the stalker had chased her, and three days after she’d almost died. She’d stayed inside her apartment, huddled in blankets, not eating nor sleeping nor moving from her place inside her frantic pillow fort, not moving from those images than ran through her mind over and over again, the fear that had gripped every muscle in her body.

And then the matyroshka dolls had tumbled to the floor, spilling tinier versions of themselves all over the carpet, a disturbance in an otherwise still room. She should have been scared, but something had made her crawl out of there and pick up the Note. And Rem had been there, and had explained everything in patient tones, to a kneeling Misa, with no makeup, reddened eyes from crying, dark bags from not sleeping, and nothing to hide. And Misa had seen the light, from the god of death. Kira was good, Kira was kind and Kira was her future.

And now here she was, with Light, who loved her all because of Rem. A happy ending. The girl had gotten her lover, had beaten out all other people for the prize, and the infidel L, was dead. A perfect love story, all made by possible by her fairy godmother of bone and cloth.

But yet, he was silent, when it truly mattered.

“Amane-san?” asked the reporter and Misa’s smile, which hadn’t yet dropped through her musings, only became brighter. She crossed her arms in the front of her skirt, covered in lace and crosses, all in black. 

“Sorry, Misa-Misa was thinking about how exciting this script is going to be, and how amazing it will be to work with director-san!” she said, with a tiny, insipid giggle, and the reporters dismissed it easily. One of Misa-Misa’s quirks, like the small skull earrings and her fervent admiration for the occult, they said, and Misa was happy to leave it at that.

Death had been an omnipresent part of Misa’s life, but somehow, she didn’t, couldn’t hate it. Even when it had claimed the people who had loved her, she still had Light and was still able to kill others without remorse. Did that make her a bad person? No. Criminals deserved to die. Criminals deserved to burn for forty seconds and feel terrified about their actions. Anybody who opposed Kira deserved to die in agony and feel horrified that God and his followers had targeted them. And whatever she did to make that happen was justified. Still, sometimes she wondered whether she was supposed to loathe Death instead of idolize it.

She’d been into ouija after the death of her parents. She and some friends that weren’t particularity savoury, but necessary for shady things like that, had gotten together on Fridays and attempted to call the dead. She’d enjoyed the candles and the incense and the tarot reading they’d use to do, all together under the stars in someone’s basement, telling scary stories to get everyone in the mood. One time, they’d even sacrificed a street cat to try and get a spirit there. But, in the end, they’d never actually summoned one. The board had always been silent.

She’d stopped seeing those friends once she submitted her application for Yoshida Modelling industries, all except for one, who ended up being useful when she had become Kira.

Still, her gothic lolita style had stemmed from those friends, and her house decor had stemmed from theirs. The other Yoshida girls had thought her personal style preferences were weird, but then she’d gotten voodoo dolls of them and played with some pins every now and then, and that had shut them up very quickly. She always knew exactly what to play in order to get her own way.

Not that Light cared much for her outfits. Neither did his family, all perfectly stern and perfectly and proper. Sayu and Sachiko-san had never indulged in anything abnormal, she was sure, and her entire existence in estranging perfect Light from the mould made her something unnecessary (if only they knew). And Light didn’t really care for her style of clothing. Even though he paid particular care to his own appearance and looks, he only cursorily looked over Misa, and when she asked him what he thought of her outfits for the day, or her hair, she was met with a nod, after a few moments of silence.

Rem hadn’t even known what lingerie was, not until Misa had explained, but she’d always patiently told Misa what clothes she looked better in. That was something she missed. Ryuk sometimes helped, when he felt like it, but other times, used the excuse of his being a male shinigami to back out of things like that. Like that even mattered. Misa stared into her wardrobe, stacked with thigh high boots, and fishnet tights and ruffled skirts and jewellery made from bone, and everything that had made Misa herself, that had brought Misa back from the depths of misery after her parents had died.

She still remembered which clothing Rem had helped her pick out, and which clothing she'd dragged her old occult friends into buying with her. She still remembered the dress she'd had to patch because she'd dropped wax on it, and the dress that had been covered in blood, one night, that she'd washed four times, unwilling to part with the pretty lace edges. Misa rubbed her fingers over the edge of one of her jackets fondly, before exhaling determinedly, and pulling them all down from her hangers. She dropped every single trace of being a harajuku girl or a girl into the occult into the large plastic bag, until her wardrobe was almost empty, except for the few sponsored clothes that some companies had given her. 

From the other room, Rem cawed loudly, and Misa gritted her teeth, as she tied the knot firmly on the plastic bag and patted her hands free of the dust. Tomorrow, she would ask Sayu to help her go shopping for some new clothes, more suiting of a mature actress and Light's girlfriend, and probably impress Sayu a little bit with her own free cash-flow. If she was to truly integrate herself into Light's family, and become his wife when necessary, she would have to start adapting. Childish things like this had to be left behind. Truly. 

The bag was almost larger than her, but Misa managed to drag it out to the trash, down three flights of stairs. For a moment, staring at the black lump which concealed her former-clothes, Misa felt a sudden urge to take them all back upstairs and apologize to them, for even thinking about this. Then, she felt the incessant need to burn it, and watch the ashes drift up to the cloudy, grey sky above her, as a final destruction of something that was holding her back. But finally, Misa turned on her heel, and walked back upstairs, to go and get ready for a night out at the corporate dinner. 

Like this, she would be ready to do anything, she mused, as she took a seat at her vanity and started to unpack her eyeshadow sets. In the mirror, there was dark bags under her eyes as the light foundation slowly faded. When she started looking like this, Rem had always said something vague about humans needing sleep. Light hadn't even commented. Misa ran a finger over the soft skin there and exhaled, breathily. 

“Ryuk…does Light love me?” she asked to the ever-present shinigami hovering behind her, grin wide and unyielding, nothing like Rem or Light or even the imagined figure of Gelus from her dreams. 

Ryuk turned to her. “Sure.” Ryuk answered slowly, his smile seeming to only get wider. Misa watched his face for a couple of moments and stared back at the mirror. The songbird cawed, loudly, behind her and Misa swallowed heavily. Rem was agreeing that Light loved her. It had to be true. Shutting her eyes, Misa leant forward to apply her makeup, slowly and carefully, in the simple routine, of putting on her battle armour, making her into a perfect perky model again. Her face looked brighter as she finished and Misa let a beautiful smile fill her face. This was for the best. 

The streets of Harajuku were filled with young girls in all sorts of eclectic fashion, and it was easy for Misa to blend in with the crowd, even with her fame, by simply sticking on a pair of sunglasses and tucking her telltale blonde hair under a wig. Harajuku always felt bittersweet. She’d spent so much time here with Rem, forcing Rem to choose the better outfit, or try different human foods or even just sit back and watch the names pass by her, curiously wondering how each person lived their life.

But Harajuku was also where most of her fashion shoots were and where she and Light often had dates and those always evened out her slight sadness about Rem being missing. Ryuk was funny, but as much as she joked about Ryuk being her pet, it was undeniable that he was Light’s and that she and Ryuk weren’t always in sync. Light and Ryuk shared a bond. just like she and Rem had shared a bond. She almost asked Ryuk one day, whether he loved Light enough to die for him like Rem had, but decided that she didn’t really want to know the answer anyway.

Ordering an apple sweet and a small tea, with a cute smile at the waitress of her favourite cafe, Misa leant back in her chair, eyes absently drifting over the names of the people in the street. She should be writing down names, like Light had asked her to in her free time, but she didn’t much feel like it today, not when everything seemed hypersensitive. Nothing quite made sense, and her dream last night had been Rem braiding flowers into her hair, slowly speaking about the Shinigami World. There had been more emotion in her voice than Misa had ever thought possible, and Misa had woken up crying for no real reason, thankful that Light had already gone to work. 

“Ryuk?” she asked, softly, her lips not moving. Ryuk’s wings fluttered, the only indication that he was listening. “You said that the shinigami world was like a desert, right?’ she asked, ducking her head.

"Yes.” Ryuk said, his voice tone even.

“And that’s why you love human fruit so much, because everything there is dry and dusty.” she murmured.

“Yes?” he asked, clearly wondering where this was leading. Well, Misa wasn’t going to make this any easier for him; he dealt with Light’s long amazing mental synthesis of random information, he could definitely deal with Misa’s short musings.

“So it’s completely like a desert? No other life-forms except shinigami and lots of empty barren space?” Misa asked, stirring her tea, slowly. Ryuk just made a noise of agreement now, and Misa shut her eyes. “And Shinigami live for how long?”

“Forever. Unless they forget to write names in their book. Or die for a human. But only a few people are dumb enough to do that.” Without looking, Misa knew that there was a huge leering grin on his face.

“Rem wasn’t stupid.” Misa defended, softly, despite the large surge of annoyance at the tone of Ryuk’s voice. “She did what she needed to.”

Surrounded by silence for an eternity, with nothing to do, nothing to savour. And then the human world would come, with fruits and softness and stuff and sound. No wonder Ryuk wanted to stay here for as long as possible. No wonder Rem had always looked slightly bemused by everything around her. “Silence is the worst thing in the world.” said Misa, finally, taking a sip of her tea. “But if you endure it…there’s something better at the end.” There had to be.

Ryuk just looked confused, as the apple sweet arrived, and Misa stood up, to walk out of the door, smile on her face. She’d buy something cute for Light. He was sure to appreciate it.

When she arrived home, Light kissed her, made love to her, and they both fell asleep without saying a word. For the first time in forever, she didn't dream of Rem or Gelus. Just a silent, rippling pool, where Misa drifted aimlessly, underneath the surface. When Misa awoke, it was the best rested she'd felt in a long time.


End file.
